The present invention relates to visually perceptible flags, such as vehicle locator flags.
Various attempts have been made to provide portable vehicle locator flags to assist motorists in locating vehicles in large parking lots, such as at sports arenas, shopping mall parking lots and makeshift parking fields at outdoor musical concerts.
Usually a flag or pennant is attached to an upwardly extending mast or pole, which is removably attached to the vehicles, such as a clip over an upper edge of a vehicle window, or by magnets, or other attachment devices which temporarily support the flag and mast above the top of the vehicle. Among these patents include Design Pat. No. D.376,179 of Cohen and U.S. Pat. No. 3,715,821 of Hawes for vehicle locator flags upon rigid flagpoles.
However, the masts in Cohen ""179 and Hawes ""821 are rigid and cannot be reduced in size to fit in vehicle glove compartments.
In some cases, to resist breaking in windy weather conditions, the pole or mast is flexible, such as a pole or mast made of a flexible plastic, for example, polyethylene or otherwise, as noted in U.S. Pat. No. 5,233,938 of Lalo. However, polyethylene plastic can only be bent slightly, and certainly not folded 180 degrees or more around into a loop.
Furthermore, achieving a prominent height is important so that the flag can be seen from far away. To be so seen, the flag should be at least the height of tall vehicles, such as sport utility vehicles or minivans, especially if the users vehicle to be located is a low-rise sports car or compact sedan.
However, the taller the height of the flag or mast, the more inconvenient it is to store the flag and mast or pole when not in use. While most vehicle locator flags will fit within the trunk of a motor vehicles, some vehicles, such as minivans, don""t have rear trunks, and for the majority of vehicles with rear trunks, it is convoluted and inconvenient for the driver to have to go around the vehicle to its rear trunk lid, insert a key or initiate a wireless transmission remote opener and then bring the flag and pole or mast to the rear of the vehicle, for insertion within the rear trunk, then manually close the trunk lid and return to the vehicle driver""s seat.
Many drivers resist the extra effort of storing long item similar in size and shape to vehicle locator flags, i.e. ice scrapers or brushes, within the rear trunk. In that case, the items such as vehicle locator flags are stored on the floor of the vehicle, or under seats, which clutters the vehicle interior or interferes with passenger comfort.
To solve this problem, it has been shown that flag masts or poles can be reduced in length, by the use of telescoping masts or poles, which can be stored compactly in the glove compartment. Vehicle locator flags with telescoping masts are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,574,726 of Sullivan and D359,924 of Grumbeck.
However making a telescoping mast is complicated and expensive, and the sliding parts can be sometimes broken.
Moreover, the larger number of telescoping parts needed to reduce the length of the mast may make the mast too flimsy and too flexible, so that the mast does not stay erect for viewing from far away.
If the number of telescoping parts is reduced, then the resultant reduced length of the mast may be too large to fit within a conventional glove compartment of an automobile.
Other prior art patents include U.S. Pat. No. 3,738,309 of Nicholl for a collapsible warning sign, U.S. Pat. No. 3,935,633 of Fritzinger for a vandal proof street sign pole, U.S. Pat. No. 4,163,426 of O""Neill for a highway safety flag and lighted display, D306,876 for a spring clip, U.S. Pat. No. 5,311,688 of Aeschbacher for a display sign for locating underground pipes, including a ratchet with a compression spring, U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,444 of Chapman for a merchandise display with supports separated by a compression spring, U.S. Pat. No. 5,771,836 of Crouse for a water ski warning display, D326,432 of McNulty for a pivotable automobile pennant, U.S. Pat. No. 5,590,621 of Sectish for a vehicle procession safety flag, U.S. Pat. No. 4,827,646 of Miller for a vehicle sign display that is raised and lowered by pivoting hinges, D314,911 of Spica for a clip, U.S. Pat. No. 5,226,792 of Darago for an automobile window distress flag, D322,413 of Castillo for a rigid vehicle locator sign and flag, D330,730 of Watanabe for a sign pole, U.S. Pat. No. 4,751,494 of Cromwell for an emergency flasher for a motorist, U.S. Pat. No. 4,144,833 of Newman for a emergency distress signal and D336,056 of Valdez for a parking location marker. U.S. Pat. No. D363,446 of MacDonald shows a vehicle locator flag with a sleeve insertable over an antenna. U.S. Pat. No. 4,178, of Berns describes a window engaging vehicle emergency signal sign. Other related patents include U.S. Pat. No. 4,471,873 of Thomas, U.S. Pat. No. 4,542,757 of Phillips, U.S. Pat. No. 4,178,874 of Berns, U.S. Pat. No. 4,833,443 of Siew, U.S. Pat. No. 4,964,360 of Henry, U.S. Pat. No. 4,976,410 of Tomaiuolo, U.S. Pat. No. 5,016,372 of Gold, U.S. Pat. No. 5,089,803 of Bohn, U.S. Pat. No. 5,140,933 of Nishina et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,320,061 of Laughlin et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,546 of Lombard, U.S. Pat. No. D376,179 of Cohen and U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,588 of Keller et al.
However these patents do not disclose a vehicle locator having a bendable, flexible flag supporting mast made of a compression spring. Compression springs are used with store merchandise display hooks, but not as support masts themselves. For example, rigid hooked masts are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,475,658 of Roberts, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,608 of Eklof, wherein compression springs surround the hooked masts to push the merchandise out towards the hooks ends of the rigid masts. Therefore, these patents do not disclose the use of compression springs as erect, flexible, bendable flag supporting masts.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle locator flag with flexible yet firm pole or mast which flexes with the wind without breaking, but which is firm enough to stay erect and keep the flag visually perceptible from a viewing distance far away from the vehicle.
It is also an object to provide a flexible flagpole or mast which can be simply folded to a small size so that it can be stored within a vehicle glove compartment and easily unfolded for future use.
It is yet another object to provide a vehicle locator flag, which is sturdy, weather proof and easy to assemble with a minimum of parts.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide easily recognizable indicia on vehicle locator flags, such as vendor advertising logos.
It is still yet another object of the present invention to improve over the disadvantages of the prior art.
In keeping with these objects and other which may become apparent, the present invention includes a vehicle locator device including an easily visible flag with recognizable indicia thereon, such as vendor advertising logos, wherein the flag is supported above the top height of the vehicle by an elongated pole or mast at a distal end thereof.
The flagpole or mast is made of a flexible but sturdy material, such as a compression spring having an attachment member, with a window edge-engaging member, such as a clip, at a proximal end thereof.
Preferably the compression spring is made of a strong but flexible material, such as 64 point piano wire, consisting essentially of a steel and phosphate metal alloy including the following components indicated by percentage weight of the total composition: about 0.090% copper (Cu), about 0.006% phosphorus (P), about 0.53% manganese(Mn), about 0.16% silicon (Si), about 0.86% carbon (C) and about 0.004% sulfur (S), with the balance being recycled steel. Such a wire is manufactured by Spring Wire, Sweden AB and by Amstek Metal Company of Farmington, Conn.
Before being formed into a coiled compression spring, mast for the present invention, the piano wire is a cylindrical rod having a diameter of 0.0625 inches. It is spun into a twisted, coiled helix forming a longitudinally extending compression spring.
For weather and waterproofing, preferably the compression spring mast is coated with a nickel or tin alloy before being spun into a twisted coiled helix.
The flagpole or mast is preferably 27 inches in height to project the viewable flag above the roof of an adjacent tall vehicle, such as a minivan or sports utility vehicle.
In addition, preferably the flagpole or mast is about xc2xc inch in outer diameter (OD) and xe2x85x9th inch in inner diameter (ID).
A small section of between 1 and 2 inches in axial length is wider at the proximal end thereof, to accommodate the insertion of a support post of a window-engaging base clip therein. The support post has a circumferentially extending scored channel recess, to accommodate the lowest, last proximal twist of the compression spring therein.
While the compression spring mast is generally erect during windy conditions, because of its modulus of elasticity, it can be folded about itself several times around into a loop, so that the looped compression spring mast now has a small diameter of about 6-8 inches.
Therefore, the mast can be folded and squeezed into a circular or oval shape, which easily fits within the glove compartment of a car or other vehicle.
The modulus of elasticity (E) of the compression spring is about 30xc3x97106 psi, which is about 207xc3x97103 MPa (mega pascals). It has a minimal tensile strength of 296,000 psi or about 2041 Mpa.
While the attachment means can be a magnet attachable to a metal surface of the vehicle, preferably it is a window edge engaging U-shaped clip, with a support brace. In addition, an auxiliary clip can keep the folded mast in a closed position within the glove compartment.